Kathryn Doi Todd

Who is Kathryn Doi Todd?

Kathryn Doi Todd is an Associate Justice of the California Second District Court of Appeal, Division Two, having been appointed to the post by Governor Gray Davis in 2000. She is of Japanese descent.

Born Kathryn Doi in Los Angeles, California, she was interned at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center as an infant after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. After receiving her diploma from Los Angeles High School in 1959, she was given an A.B. in history from Stanford University in 1963 and a J.D. from Loyola Law School in 1970. From 1971–1978, Todd was an attorney in Little Tokyo.

In 1978, Governor Jerry Brown appointed her to the Los Angeles County Municipal Court, making her the first female Asian American judge in the United States. In 1981, Brown elevated Todd to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, a position she would hold until 2000 when Brown's former chief of staff, Governor Gray Davis, appointed her to the California Second District Court of Appeal, Division Two.

While she was on the Superior Court, Kathryn Doi Todd divorced her husband, sculptor Michael Todd, with whom she has one daughter, Mia, who is a singer and songwriter.